Athletes fall short in Grenada despite improved showings

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Despite improved individual performances at the OECS Track & Field Championships held in Grenada over the weekend, a number of the country’s athletes were unable to make the qualifying standards for the upcoming World Championships in their various categories.
Tahir Walsh, who competed in both the 100 and 200 metres in Grenada, clocked 10:27 seconds to capture the men’s 100 event, missing the 10.12 qualifying standard while the athlete registered a time of 20.92 to win the 200 metres. His time is just off the 20.44 seconds qualifying standard.
Antigua & Barbuda’s Richard Richardson was third in the 200 metres in a time of 21.42 seconds.
Coach of the team, Carl Casey, said the athletes performed well at both the Trinidad & Tobago Invitational and the OECS in Grenada.
“We did quite well in Trinidad in terms of the individual races, Chavaughn Walsh is pretty close to qualifying standard where the standard is 10.12 and he ran 10.17 seconds. In the 200 metres we had Tahir and to me, he ran quite well. When we got to Grenada it was a team event but to me we didn’t have enough athletes to compete as a team championship wise so individually, I thought that we performed well,” he said.
The country’s 4X1 relay team, comprising Tahir, Chavaughn, Jared Jarvis and Daniel Bailey, recorded a time of 39.22 seconds to win the event but failed to better their time of 38.86 in Trinidad.
The team was without Cejhae Greene who did not contest the relay after feeling a slight strain in his leg.
Casey is hoping to have more meets to help the athletes sharpen some aspects of their race.
“We think we need at least one more quality race but I honestly can’t tell you [what’s happening] when it comes to that part of it. I just think that we need to be a little bit sharper in terms of racing. The chemistry and so forth is good and if something is not broken you don’t try to mess with it but we need to be race sharp because that’s our problem,” the coach said.
In other results, Kalique St Jean finished third in the 1500 metres with a time of 4 minutes and 5 seconds while he was second in the 5000 in 16 minutes and 36 seconds.
Sheldon Noble leaped a distance of 7.36 metres to take silver in the long jump while Taeco O’Garro registered a distance of 15.21 metres to win gold in the triple jump.
 
 
 
 

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